Hey everyone! My name is Beymer and I am the author of the newsletter “Figuring Things Out”. I just completed a series of articles on music composition and more recently a series of articles on religion. The next series of articles will be on various topics on human psychology. This new subject, like my previous subjects, is a subject about which I know absolutely nothing. Should I be writing about something that I know nothing about and have no formal or informal credentials? Yes, in fact, most writers fall into this category. Consider, for example, the subject of my most recent articles, religion. The origins of all information about religion are from old books, written by writers who knew nothing about the real world when they created their particular religion. What credentials did these creators of religion possess? Well, they were completely ignorant of the world and heavens, and had very active imaginations! What more is needed for someone to write about religion? Of course, there are religious and non-religious universities that give in essence history degrees about religions. You could say such people have credentials that signify they have been instructed in the existing religions. However, do these credentials mean they know more about a religion that someone who actually practices that religion? Does a PhD in Religion from say Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University mean you know and understand God and the world around us? By the way, Jerry Falwell was a famous Baptist preacher who taught the Baptist flavor of Christianity on television and was very active in politics in the seventies and eighties. He also created the political group referred to as the Moral Majority, a group dedicated to promoting Baptist beliefs in government legislation. Oh no, no, no! I’m writing about religion again! Let me just say, credentials such as degrees from colleges and universities mean you have successfully demonstrated to such institutions (i.e., the professors and instructors) that you have met at least a minimum of their requirements of knowledge and associated skills. Your credentials are based off the credentials of your professors, whose credentials are in turn based off their professors. If you continue down this credential path, you will eventually find a professor with no credentials! That is, the original sources of all information is from people who had no credentials in that particular subject. So, do credentials really mean anything? Think about that for a minute! Let me just conclude this disclaimer by stating I know absolutely nothing about psychology, which makes me the perfect candidate for writing about it. Let me say, also, that I will, in my writings on psychology, use the Trump method; that is, I will not bother researching a topic for facts, instead, I will state what I belief or what I want you to believe, without any substantiating evidence provided or even existing. So, take everything I say with a grain of salt, as you should be doing with anything you hear from politicians, religious leaders, Fox News, CNN, NPR and especially from me! (LOL) By the way, don’t practice what I preach … I don’t and neither should you! (MLOL)
Ok, the subject of this article is about belief; in particular, I want to write how someone is transformed from being ignorant of something to being a believer in that particular thing. First, let’s look at the word “believe”. The online “Dictionary” defines the word “believe” as follows:
“To accept something as being true; to feel sure of the truth of something; to hold something as an opinion; to be convinced; to have confidence”
Here’s the “Dictionary” definition of “true”:
“In accordance with fact or reality; accurate or exact; actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact, not imagined or supposed”
Here’s the “Dictionary” definition of “fact”:
“A thing that is known or proved to be true”
Finally, here’s the “Dictionary” definition of “make believe”":
“A pretense; To pretend that something is true or real when it is not”
Even though religion could more accurately be described as “make believe” than “believe”, I’m not writing about religion or anything in particular in this article. This article is about belief, not make-believe, in general. Based on the definitions above, the topic for this article is what is required transform a person from being a non-believer into a believer of something. By non-believer, I don’t mean someone who has previously rejected that something; instead, I mean someone who has no opinion of something or has not been in a situation where she needed to evaluate the truth of something. The topic of transforming someone who has rejected something previously would make a good future article. I suspect such individuals could be transformed much easier than those with no significant prior thoughts on that particular thing.
Let’s begin by considering the characteristics of the purveyor of a belief or convincer (the person selling or promoting a particular belief) that increase the likelihood that he will succeed in convincing or converting into a believer the convincee (the person to be convinced). The conditions I propose are as follows:
The purveyor of the belief is physically attractive.
The purveyor of the belief is perceived as being intelligent.
The purveyor is famous and respected (popular) by many people.
The purveyor is well known by and respected by the convincee.
The purveyor has a close relationship (e.g., mentor, parent, relative, friend, or religious leader) with the convincee.
The purveyed belief is consistent with the convincee’s life experiences.
The purveyed belief provides possible answers to some difficulties currently being experienced in the convincee’s life.
Equally important, since we’re talking about two-way communication, are the characteristics of a person that make her more susceptible to believing the presented belief. The characteristics that I propose are as follows:
The person has little or no education.
The person has strong gregarious tendencies.
The person is afraid of being rejected and tends to be more of a follower than a leader.
The person, regardless of education, was reared in an environment favorable to the belief being presented to her.
The belief being presented is inert or irrelevant to her lifestyle. In such a case, it may be more of a case of “make believe” rather than “believe”, since such a belief has no impact on her lifestyle.
Finally, we need to consider what it really means to be a believer of something. If the belief has no impact upon the believer, then either the person is not really a believer, or the belief is inert or irrelevant to the believer’s lifestyle. Assuming that the belief is relevant to a person’s lifestyle, the conditions I propose as indicators that someone really believes something are as follows:
Acceptance of the belief influences the believer’s future decisions about things related to the belief.
Acceptance of the belief consoles the believer in some manner such as relief, happiness, satisfaction, or hope.
Acceptance of the belief provides guidance in the believer’s behavior.
Consider the following scenario. An attractive, intelligent, and well-regarded convincer has a belief he wishes to purvey to an attactive, intelligent, stable convincee. What approach should the convincer take to make this person believe this belief. By the way, it’s not a requirement that the convincer actually believes the belief; all that is important is that he transforms the convincee into a believer. How does he do this? Well, the convincer needs to discover some need or desire that is important to the convincee that will have some impact upon the convincee’s lifestyle if she becomes a believer. Suppose the convincer is selling a particular stock and the convincee is financially secure and is not motivated by greed. However, suppose she is single (as her mother regularly reminds her) and finds the convincer to be a suitable mate. Well, if the convincer detects some romantic interest, he may (if the feeling is mutual or if he wishes to sell his belief bad enough) flirt with her to the point that she “makes believe” initially to reciprocate his advances. Depending on the relationship that follows, she may or may not eventually become a believer. The key here is that the convincer has to provide the answer to some convincee need in order to sell his belief. People who are satisfied or even happy with their condition in life are perhaps the hardest to sell a new belief. People who are destitute are the easiest to transform into believers. Consider the case now where the convincer is neither attractive, nor intelligent, nor popular, nor even clean (maybe taking the personna of a wino), while the convincee has all of these characteristics and more! How on earth could this “bum”, the convincer, convince the convincee to believe something? Well, suppose the convincer is sitting with a big smile on his face in a Buddha pose. Suppose he has dark blue eyes, which along with the big smile, are his only attractive features. Suppose further that he has a sign saying “I was put here by God to convince you to repent and accept Him in your heart. If God was successful, please respond to me, ‘I accept God’”. If she is not a believer in God, will this spectacle of a man convince her there is a God? Sorry, but this was the first example that came to mind … religious conversion. Well, it depends … if her emotions overrule her intelligence, then most likely yes.
Now that I have reviewed this article several times, I wonder if instead of being about purveying a belief it is more of a manual for how to sell something. But you know, they are the same. Selling someone on some belief requires the same skills as selling them a product. The best salesmen are indistinguishable from the best preacher man. Preachers tend to get their training at seminaries; but I think they would get much better training (and make more money than that from an offering plate) by working several years at a pre-owned car lot. Convincing a person to buy a pre-owned car is no different than selling them a religion or a secular belief.